


if you're warm; then you can't relate to me

by ceruleanstorm



Series: should i stay or should i go; [9]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst fic, F/M, Prompt Fic, fight fic, remember in the end i love you, this is so extra im so sorry for everything
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-01
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-03 12:25:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8713876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceruleanstorm/pseuds/ceruleanstorm
Summary: “If I had to make that choice again, between your safety and my life, I would chose you,” El whispers, her gaze never wavering, never ever breaking. “Every single time.”
Everything is shattering, everything is breaking into a million pieces right before his eyes. “I can’t do this anymore.” 
“I won’t ask you to.”
Mileven Week 2016 Prompt: El protecting Mike





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> prompt for mileven week 2016: el protecting mike  
> prompt also given to me: can u maybe write something.. about hurt eleven like maybe mike and eleven got in a fight over something stupid or something??? IDK ANGST
> 
> also please don't sue me.

Like a record spinning and stuck on repeat, he plays the argument in his head later, over and over and over, until his foggy brain is adding details he’s pretty sure weren’t even in the fight, and his heart is shattering into a million pieces. And he can’t stop it, there staring at the bright red numbers on his alarm clock mock him with every number passing him by. With every red number that blinks into another sixty seconds, another sixty seconds to add to the time he spends shattering everything they’ve built together. 

“That was the  _ stupidest, _ most idiotic thing, you’ve ever done- El are you even listening? Great. You’re not even listening to me.” 

Thinking back on it, it was all his fault. 

Mike flies down the basement stairs after Eleven (she hasn’t even looked at him, and it makes him want to scream), swinging around the post to face her, to get her to look at him. She won’t.

El throws her purse onto the D&D table. Its contents spill out over, littering the table. She doesn’t bother to even touch them.“I don’t want to do this right now.”

She sounded exhausted, why couldn’t he just leave it alone? Mike rolls over onto his pillow, away from those stupid numbers. But he can’t close his eyes, he can’t reach out for sleep, because he’ll think of her, and he’ll only be able to picture her face in that moment. 

“Why not?” he asks. His heart is racing in his chest a million miles, driving him back to a memory he doesn’t want to go back to. “Why’d you do it, El? In front of the whole damn world?”

_ Stupid, stupid, stupid _ , Mike throws his head onto his pillow. He clenches his fist, watches his skin turn the color of snow before letting go. That punch would hurt him more than the wall.

“You were- you were about to get hit by that car...Why wouldn’t I- why wouldn’t I do it?” El staggers and catches herself on one of the folding chairs, her grip turning white. She’s looking at him now, bloodshot eyes that make his heart beat faster because when he looks at them all he can see is-

“You damn moron,” He mutters into the pillow. “She saved your life! Why couldn’t have just said thank you?” He had had that Saturday off, for once in a million years because the universe was giving them a break- of course it had to prove him wrong. He remembers telling a joke, maybe, hand in hand, the sun was lighting up her face as she laughed, and he walked backwards at the crosswalk just to see her. 

He heard the horn next, the sound of it taking its sweet time to reach him as he turned, his muscles reacting at a snail’s comfortable pace, and there was the truck, barreling down main at forty miles an hour. How strange that his last thought was about her, and how she shone in the sunlight. 

Mike closed his eyes, ready to let the moment happen.

But it never did. At the sound of tires fighting the friction of the pavement, his eyes flew open. He caught sight of the driver, straining to pull the wheel back to the road, but  _ he  _ wasn’t in control of the truck. As fast as it had been going before, it barreled down in it’s altered path, before meeting its fate right before meeting the lamp post on the cross roads of Fifth and Main. It screeched backward in a half jump a few feet, as if the vehicle had braked by itself. 

“El,” he whispered, and her name echoed in his ringing ears.

“El,” he shouts, back there in the basement. “What if somebody had seen you? What if one of Brenner’s men had been there?”

Her face contorts at the mention of her previous “caretaker’s” name. “Hopper said those men were gone. He said they all left, a long time ago.” She speaks quietly, but there’s an edge to her voice. It makes him want to pull his hair out, makes him want to scream out the words beating on his chest.

And so he does.

_ Because you never think _ , Mike bites his tongue, and his fingers curl into his pillow.  _ You just had to yell about Hopper even though that was five freaking years ago and you’re a bigger person than you were than you were twelve and  _ \- no. He knows he’s not.

“Oh so we can trust whatever the Chief says, right?” Mike runs his fingers through his hair with shaking hands. “Because it’s not like he sold you out all those years ago? It’s not as if he isn’t the reason you had to fight the Demogorgon?” 

Mike turns over. The hysteria from that moment, that one moment, comes back to his shaking hands. But he can’t say that once those words, the ones he shouted at her, at everything, left him so did the weight. And he can’t say that he doesn’t hate himself for that.

When he turned back to her, his legs the weight of wet cement, she was there, her gaze trained on the truck, and the familiar drip of red above her lip, he was back there. He was back in his seventh grade science classroom, every molecule in him screaming no, as she reached her hand out and shattered herself to keep the rest of them whole. He was back in the moment when all he was left with was the fading echoes of her final scream.

He can see the basement around them reflected in her brown eyes, and he can see tears in them too. “That’s what this is about,” she whispers. “Isn’t it?”

Mike stares up at his ceiling. It’s mocking him, just like his damn alarm clock. But he stares at it just a little longer hoping tears don’t come, remembering. Remembering the time in the second grade Ms. Adams built a paper mache volcano with the class, remembering the feeling of anticipation in his stomach as he waited for the baking soda and vinegar explosion. It was the moment he fell in love with science, watching the foam bubble over it chaotic waves, unable to hold in the pressure. 

He’s the explosion now, hands in his hair and his words shaking as speaks, quickly losing all control.

“Why did you do it, Eleven? Why’d you do it? Why’d you just give up like that?”

“Mike-” she reaches out for him, but he stumbles backward, face in his hands.

“No, you have to tell me. I need to know.” his voice echoes in the empty space between them. 

El doesn’t hesitate. Her voice is soft and he knows this is her honest answer. “To protect you-”

“Bullshit, El!” he breaks. Her eyes light with something reminiscent of fear, pain if he had to guess, and she flinches, taking a step back. It breaks him all over again. “There were  _ other _ ways! But no, you had to sacrifice yourself!”

“Other ways?” she hisses. The tears are falling down her cheeks. She doesn’t bother wiping them away. “Like what, the wrist rocket?”

The pillow’s damp now, he realizes- he’s staring at the red letters of the clock waiting for them to change again- he’s been crying.  _ I said all of that _ , he bites his tongue and is met with the taste of salt,  _ why did I keep going? Why didn’t I stop? _

He shakes his head, his vision of her blurring through his own tears. “You didn’t have to do it. You didn’t have to go. But you did it anyway, and, and-” he’s laughing now, his emotions bordering on hysteria, “I don’t think you did it to protect me! I think you did it to prove something to yourself!”

_ You sure proved something to yourself today, Wheeler. That you’re a grade A asshole.  _ He lets the tears fall freely onto his pillow. There’s no point in fighting them. Besides, he knows he deserves this anyway. 

El swallows and looks away. Oh God, he wishes she’d yell, that she’d scream, that’d she’d just push  _ back, _ but she stands there, still and so far away.

“How could you be so  _ selfish _ ? A year, El, a whole year. Do you know how they looked at me? How  _ everyone _ looked at me and thought there’s the poor Wheeler kid, heartbroken and delusional. And even through all of that,” he chokes on his words, and then he’s running his hands through his hair again, and shaking his head wildly. “I still looked for you! I let everyone think I’d lost my mind and told everyone you were still out there! That you were coming back! Twelve months, twelve  _ damn  _ months!” Mike’s yelling at the ceiling now, long past yelling at her. He’s just yelling now because he doesn’t know how to stop, and he doesn’t know if he wants to.

He knows what he’s doing. He knows he’s hurting her, watching her grip on the metal work of the chair turn whiter and the tears in her eyes are falling faster, and he wants so badly to drop everything and dry those tears, but he needs to say this. These words have chained him for far too long,     

Mike watches the clock blink from 3:54 in 3:55, and forces himself to memorize the words she says next as he replays the memory in his head. He has to remember them now, for when he has stupid moronic moments like these later. 

If there even is a later..

The words “twelve damn months” bring change to El. She lets go of the chair, taking those steps to meet him. There’s fire in her eyes and the fear, the pain has left her. All that remains is her anger. His thoughts race in and out, a fuel to his own fire, as he’s thinking,  _ this is it, she’s finally going to yell and shout at me and this is finally going to be normal.  _ But she doesn’t yell, and they’re not normal. They never were and they were going to be. And he can see it now, in her eyes, what’s he’s done. He’s stolen all of her time away chasing some far off fantasy of normalcy. 

“If I had to make that choice again, between your safety and my life, I would chose you,” El whispers, her gaze never wavering, never ever breaking. “Every single time.”

Everything is shattering, everything is breaking into a million pieces right before his eyes. “I can’t do this anymore.” 

“I won’t ask you to.” her words are soft whispers  They are meant to set him free. All they do is break him.  She turns while he stands frozen, her hair falling in her face and her shoulders shaking even as she runs faster than he’s ever seen her up the stairs. He doesn’t have to look to know how she shut the door. The echo of the slam is loud enough, and he deserves it.

All he’s left with is the contents of her empty purse and the silence of any basement that echo with his sobs in the hours to come. 

4:03. _ What have you done? What have you done? What have you done? What you have done? She was your everything and you just threw it away like a damn idiot over some moment that happened when you were twelve years old? A moment that means you’re alive to even be this angry?  _ Mike sits up. As hard as he tries, he can’t chase this voice of reason away. In this moment, the darkness of his room is a comfort.  

_ This was our first real fight,  _ he thinks to himself, staring at his hands. 4:06. They’d argued before, over tiny details and stupid meaningless things, but this was destruction. His destruction, and he’d give  _ everything  _ just to have one of those arguments back. His mind wanders to where El is, what she must be feeling, and it’s like inviting a hammer to come and smash his heart into as many pieces as it pleased. The heartache returns with a force. He can’t hear her in his head, she isn’t there, it’s quiet except his own voice. And it feels wrong. 

4:08.  _ “If I had to make that choice again, between your safety and my life, I would chose you, every single time.”  _ If only there was a way he could show her that he would make that decision too, and never ever falter. Mike searches in desperation for an idea of _ how _ , how could he possibly show her what she means to him.

4:09.  _ “I can’t do this anymore.”  _ Mike clenches his fists. There is an anger in his chest, loud and heavy, anger at himself more than anything.

4:10  _ “I won’t ask you to.”  _ Where did this leave them? Mike still loved her, that was as clear and certain as the sound his heartbeat in his ears. But he could understand if she didn’t- couldn’t- love him anymore. Onto his hands the tears fall freely, and the voice in his head is louder than ever.  

_ She was your everything. _

Mike’s eyes catch the clock. 4:11.

“Is,” he corrects himself. “She is my everything.”

His head falls back onto the pillow with a loud thud, but the ache in his chest is dissipating. He’s lost her once, Mike is not losing Eleven ever again. Maybe he can’t fix this, maybe he can’t rebuild what he’s burned. But he’s willing to try- even if it means starting from the beginning. 

El protected all of them that night, she’d saved all of their lives. He can picture her smile, her laugh, the same smile and laugh he’s fallen head over heels for. If only he could go back and tell that stupid twelve year old kid that love is what this was going to be, maybe he could have saved himself from making the same stupid mistakes. Maybe he could convince that kid to that all that anger that came from her sacrifice, that it was toxic. Maybe he could convince him to let all that anger go.

But for now, Mike closes his eyes to the alarm clock and thinks of her. El was his protector, and he was going to prove to her- and to himself- that he was someone worth protecting. 


	2. Chapter 2

The dead flowers sway in the rhythm of the November wind, kissing her ankles with petals long dry. Her fingers clench, and she looks up to scene around her. A concrete and metallic jungle held together only by rust. Sitting on the bed of truck half surrendered to the earth, the grey slab she threw Lucas against all those years ago stares back at her. She can still hear all their voices-  _ his _ voice- as if it’s in the wind, taunting her. “ _ What is wrong with you? What is wrong with you?”  _

“You came.” And he’s there, wading through wilted daisies given to the weeds, coming to where she waits on the truck bed. His voice is hoarse and he grips the steel of the truck on the side he hides behind, his fingers whitening as if he needs to steady himself, ready to sway in the wind like one of the many dead flowers.

“You asked me to.”

_ “I can’t do this anymore” _

_ “I won’t ask you to.”  _

“El I’m sor-”

“Mike stop.” she shakes her head, her voice catching. Heat pierces her cheeks and the sunrise in her vision blurs like a painting as the tears threaten to come. But she’s not ready. She’s not ready to vulnerable in front of him. She’s not ready to fall back into his arms like it’s the only thing that would bring the jagged broken pieces together. So she blinks the hot tears away and her grip on the truck bed gets a little tighter. 

“Where are you going?” The voice is a whisper coming from a bundle of blankets and bathrobes and socks on the couch. The living room lamp comes alive, and there’s Joyce, right where El expects her to be. Light follows Joyce.El swallows the guilt in her throat; she knows she’s been waiting up in the living room all night. 

“Mike-” her breath hitches at his name. “He- he asked me to meet him.” 

“At five in the morning?” Joyce asks. “I didn’t- when did the phone ring?”

“It didn’t.”

“I only came because you wouldn’t stop asking.” El tells him, fighting to speak through the shaking in her voice. He’s been a ghost in her mind through the long hours of the night, as he’s been standing at the door, holding his hand up but never daring to knock, knowing she wouldn’t let him in. But he’s been there, like a phantom whisper. And El knows Mike. He wants to fix this, and here she is, in the center of this graveyard of flowers, refusing him. Defeat overtakes his features at her admission, and his shoulders fall.  She didn’t expect to find him so broken by this, dark circles kissing his eyes and his freckles faded into red against his fair skin. The dead flowers kiss her skin and she wants  _ so badly  _ to take his face in her hands  but  _ she’s  _ the reason he’s broken, that he’s been crying and unable to find sleep.  _ She’s  _ the reason he keeps breaking and breaking and breaking... 

_ “How could you be so selfish ? A year, El, a whole year. Do you know how they looked at me? How everyone looked at me and thought there’s the poor Wheeler kid, heartbroken and delusional. And even through all of that I still looked for you! I let everyone think I’d lost my mind and told everyone you were still out there! That you were coming back! Twelve months, twelve damn months! _ ”

Breaking and breaking and breaking....

She catches his eyes and the anger feels relentless in her chest. Heartbeat in her ears, she takes him all in, her fingers curling and her nostrils flaring. How could  _ she _ be so selfish? How could  _ he? _ Seven thousand, two hundred, and fourteen hours El wasted away in that bleak, freezing reflection of hell, seven thousand, two hundred and fourteen hours fighting off slimy, blood thirsty monsters and eating those damn eggos and whatever food Hopper brought that the bridge between worlds would turn bland and flavorless. Seven thousand, two hundred and fourteen hours huddling for a scrape of warmth in the relentless cold wind and the toxic ash that she let burn her lungs, because no one was coming to save her. Seven thousand, two hundred and fourteen hours in her kingdom of darkness, wondering if Michael Wheeler even remembered her.

Seven thousand, two hundred and fourteen hours for three boys Eleven barely knew, to repay them for their simple acts of kindness.

And she’d do it again. 

Every single minute of that nightmare, that hell- she’d spend an eternity in the Upside Down, if it meant he would live. Because she would do anything, even death was merely a dance, if it meant Mike Wheeler could continue on living his life in this beautiful world meant just for him.

_ “If I had to make that choice again, between your safety and my life, I would chose you.  Every single time.” _

Even if he had to live a life without her.

The sun is rising now, breathing life into a world of color in landscape bathed in grey. Mike’s tired face in washed out in brilliant oranges and soft pinks and he looks so fragile, breakable in the morning light. It’s not the Mike she’s used to seeing, to loving. He’s coming around the truck, shaky hands running through his wild hair, stuttering on nervous words. 

“El, please I just- I just need to-”

“What do you need?” the whisper that echoes back to her ears is tired and foreign. “What more do you even need to say?”

“That I was wrong, okay? That I shouldn’t have yelled at you it was wrong,  _ I _ was wrong. I was stupid, I was being a total jackass. I messed up, I messed up so bad, but please...” his voice raises with the wind, growing louder as panic overtakes him, and then he breaks. He falters. There is desperation dancing in his brown eyes and El feels the tears in her own. “Please you have to let me fix this. Please, El. Please, let me prove to you I can fix this.”

_ “You didn’t have to do it. You didn’t have to go. But you did it anyway, and, and- and I don’t think you did it to protect me! I think you did it to prove something to yourself!” _

The night she’d spent locked in her closet, the long sleeves of heavy winter coats draped over her shoulders as if to shove her deeper into the darkness, those words played over and over, a broken record on repeat. The words stung so much more than anything else, because El knew deep down they were nothing if not the truth. Or one truth among so many. She shattered herself into a million pieces to keep her friends whole, so they could live on, but it was more than that, El could see that plain as day in even the shadows of the closet. It was her chance, her moment, to prove she was more than what they could create behind locked doors and white walls in a laboratory, that was she more than a weapon who brought ugly monsters in the world and pain to so many people. That she was more than Experiment Eleven, and that she had a real family and she was worthy deserving of their love and friendship. 

What El did that night, she did this her own way, for the boys who pulled her out of the rain, and for that little girl who cried herself to sleep all those lonely nights. It didn’t matter how many times she would break.

But it mattered that he did. Mike stands there, the weight of the world on his shoulders and she shifts on the bed of the truck. There is light in his eyes again for a second as he realizes what she means,that this a crack in the glass, and he pulls himself up, but as far away from her as possible, and it’s It feels like there’s an entire universe between them- again.

“El?” Mike asks. She blinks rapidly, willing the tears in her eyes away. “El, please- please say something..”

_ “Oh so we can trust whatever the Chief says, right? Because it’s not like he sold you out all those years ago? It’s not as if he isn’t the reason you had to fight the Demogorgon? _ ”

When El first came back from the Upside Down, Mike wasn’t angry to see her. In every scenario she granted herself to help her through the cold, she could only imagine Mike furious with her actions. But he was all goofy smiles and blinking tears away and hugging her until she couldn’t breathe and talking all about how now they could go to the Snowball. He was the first light after a year of darkness, and never ever said anything about being angry. And by the time they were fifteen and they were dodging feelings until they collided with each other, they had never even talked about  _ that night.  _ It was an unspoken agreement not delve into those painful memories. Surrounded by the darkness and emptiness of her closet, El went through every scenario, every memory, every moment with him where she had the chance to talk to him about what happened. Every moment where she had a chance to free herself from the words dancing on her tongue. But she had no idea what he had been putting himself through. How angry he was, how all this time he carried that moment on his back, how he kept reliving that nightmare.

_ This is all my fault,  _ she told herself, over and over, burying herself deeper into the closet. She’d done this, by giving herself up, and then pretending someone could love her without remembering what pain she was capable of bringing. Eleven wasn’t worthy, not of love, and certainly not of him. The tears streamed down her face and painful sobs racked her chest at every thought. What a terrible girlfriend she was, selfish and ignorant, inadequate- was she even worthy of being his  _ friend _ ? He was her Atlas, and she asked him to carry her for too long. 

El thought of his words, “ _ You’re not the monster! You saved me!”  _ and cried harder.

Mike’s running his hands through his hair again, and it finally breaks El. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?” she demands. Her voice catches on her words, and the tears are falling freely now, washing her clean. “Why didn’t you ever talk to me about how you were angry? Why didn’t you ever say  _ anything _ ?”

“El-”

“You’re always telling me how I should trust you, how I should tell you when something is wrong, when I’m- when I’m upset! Don’t you trust  _ me _ , Mike?” El is wiping the tears from her eyes as fast as she can, unable to stop the shaking in her shoulders. It’s becoming it’s own battle to try and breath. 

Mike reaches out for her, and she can sense the eternal fight in him like it’s the loudest thing in her world right now, before he stops himself. The fight rages on. “I do trust you, El.” he whispers and she throws her head in her hands. “I trust you more than anything world.”

“Then why?” she sobs. “Why didn’t you tell me? I could’ve- I could’ve fixed it. I could’ve made it better!” El hiccups. She collapsing in on herself, surrendering to her every emotion, and she can him feel moving closer, losing his own fight. It’s almost comforting. 

“No, El, this is  _ not  _ your fault!” There is a kind of anger in his tone, one she can’t place.

Her fingernails tear at the skin of her arms. “Yes, yes it is! I did this, I put you through that,I should- I should have been a better girlfriend, this is all my fault -”

“El!” Mike half screams, taking her by the shoulders. She can’t even look at him. “This is not your fault, it’s mine! It was just some leftover baggage from when we were twelve! I was stupid to even be angry and I’m not going to watch you destroy yourself over something that  _ I _ have to work through!” 

Grabbing his wrists as if they are the holding thing tethering her to the silent morning around them, she fights to steady herself. But it hurts to breath, and all she wants is him, “You- you didn’t have to do it alone. Isn’t that what you’re always telling me? That I don’t have to work through things alone?” Out of spite, she hits him in the shoulder, once then twice, her hair falling into her face before she collapses into him, angry tears streaming down her face.

She can feel his heartbeat as he laughs. “I totally deserve you throwing my words back at me.”

“Yes.” El sniffs. “Yes you do.”

“I’m so sorry, El. You were right, I should have told you what was going on, but I didn’t want my anger to be real, since it’s so stupid.”

“It isn’t stupid.” She half whispers, half hiccups.

“Yeah, it is.” Mike shakes his head against the top of hers.

Sighing, El takes his head in her shaking hands. He looks at her the way he’s always looked at her, and relief floods her veins. “Mike…”

“You saved my life, El. You saved all our lives that night. Without you I wouldn’t even be here to be yelling at you for doing what you did. I was so angry when you left, but I think it was mostly at myself, you know? I should have been able get us out of there, the night was my fault.” He sighs, wiping his eyes one last time. “I’ve been so ashamed of my anger because after what you did, I have no right. I don’t even have a leg to stand on. So if I thought if maybe we just ignored it, if you know,  _ I  _ ignored it, the anger might go away. Guess the pressure just got to be too much, kind of like that time we blew up gummy bears in potassium chlorate, expect that wasn’t really pressure, it was more a chemical reaction...” Mike rambles on, running his hands through his hair again. “Yeah, I really should have picked a better example.”

Her own emotions are a storm cloud. Replaying his words, half formed replies of disagreement dance on her tongue, but none of them feel right, none of them can heal him, he has to do that on his own. All she can do is stand by and watch. “Leave it to you to bring science into this.” A small smile pulls on her lips and she takes his hands in hers.

“It’s like the only thing I’m good at.” He sighs, then chuckles.

_ That  _ she really wants to argue with, but Mike doesn’t give her the chance, taking her by surprise.  _ He’s really good at that,  _ El thinks back to that night in the cafeteria.

“Where do we go from here?” He asks. Her breath hitches.

“What are you going to tell him, El?” Joyce asks from the couch.

El tightens her grip on the door handle. “I don’t know.”

“Are you two... is this- is this it?” Joyce’s voice is a little smaller.

“No! Yes?” El chokes, her shoulders falling. “I don’t know.” she whispers.

“I don’t know Mike…” He’s taking his hand away from hers, and his gaze has fallen past her to the flowers. He’s shaking his head. Suddenly it feels like they’re saying goodbye.

“I’m not-” Mike takes a deep breath. “El, I’m not worthy. Of you, of any of this, okay? I don’t deserve it.You’re this amazing, beautiful, kind person, and I’m just- just me and need, no you  _ deserve _ someone who can be there for and doesn’t get angry over stupid petty things, and that just isn’t me, okay?”

“Are you,” there’s this urge to punch him in the shoulder again because she doesn’t want to- no can’t take him seriously, but right now she has to focus on keeping the truck  _ on  _ the ground, “Are you breaking up with me?” All of her thoughts of coming here to speak her mind and tell him this was her fault and wait until she was just broken enough to feel like fixing it suddenly dissipate. Her heart is the wilted daisy she’s crushing under her sneaker. This is not what she thought this was going to be.

Mike nods and his voice is low when he speaks next, as if he doesn’t want to speak at all. “You deserve somebody better. It’s like I’m a stormtrooper dating Princess Leia. It just doesn’t work like that, trust me.”

_ He’s breaking up with me,  _ El tries to tell herself,  _ and he’s using Star Wars to do it. _

The silence between them is deafening. It’s only the dead flowers and broken cars, and El stuck in a moment on repeat. Then Mike is getting up, defeat a ghost following him. “We can…” he whispers, “We can still be friends right?” 

El’s fingers curl. Her heart is being stretched into a million directions, and now he’s starting to walk away. Like this is the end. Like he deserves to have the last word. 

“No.” She shakes her head and forces time to stop. Mike falters in his tracks, but he doesn’t turn around.

His shoulders fall. “El-”

“No, no.” El is blinking away tears of anger and guilt. “Michael Wheeler you did  _ not _ drag me all the way out to the junkyard to break up with me and then tell me we should just be friends. We hit one bump in the road and you’re ready to just throw it all away?”

Her words have sparked a fire. He turns around, and there’s a light in his eyes, one of stubbornness, but she has his attention and it’s all she needs. “I just told you, you deserve someone better-”

“Bullshit!” hisses El, standing her ground on these wilted flowers; Mike takes a surprised step back stunned with her expletive since she’s not one to curse.. “You’re plenty worthy, Mike.You have to know you’ve always been better than what  _ I  _ deserved, since the moment we met, do you understand?”

“Don’t you think this all shows I’m a little less mature than we thought? I’m not this perfect hero you act like I am, El!”

“I don’t need you be perfect!” El is walking to him with every word, every step another crack in the wall between them. “I just need you!”

Her words echo throughout the junkyard, dancing around in the wind and in the sunrise. And then something in him breaks, and suddenly he’s the one falling into her arms, holding her like it’s the only thing keeping him together. Her fingers curl into his jacket, and she feels the familiar warmth on tears on her cheeks. 

“I’m  _ so  _ sorry, El.” He sobs into her shoulder, and she holds him tighter.

“Is this what you want? We can break up, if it’s what you really want.”

“No, no,” he shakes his head, his voice breaking and shattering El’s heart into a million pieces. “I just want what’s best for you.”

“You sound like Joyce.” El laughs into his shoulder.

They stand together for an eternity, holding onto each other as if they never ever intend to let go. He’s rocking her back and forth before she whispers, “It’s you, mouth breather.”

“What?”

“It’s you. You’re what’s best for me.” 

He kisses her forehead, running his hand through her hair, and she shivers. Falling back onto of the bed of the truck, they are there to catch each other. El’s head falls back to his shoulder immediately, right as they find each other’s hands. “I don’t want to give up on this, you know…”

“It kind of sounded like you did.” El squeezes his hand.

“Yeah, I know. But trust me, it’s the last thing I really want.” He admits. “I just couldn’t see any other way to fix this then to completely start over.” Sighing, El brushes his cheeks, her fingers lingering on his freckles. “But you’re right. I shouldn’t throw everything away because we hit a wall. But couples fight. I mean, Mrs. Byers and the Chief still fight, and Nancy fights with Jonathan all the time. My mom and dad still fight and they’ve been together for like twenty years,”

“Maybe it means we’re doing something right.” El wonders aloud. She’s taken to playing with strands of his hair, watching the sunrise in the reflection of his eyes.

“I guess it’s just part of being a couple. And know we know, we can learn from this.” He runs his fingers through his hair again, not before kissing her forehead again. “But hey, still partners, right?”

“Yeah,” she squeezes his hand, “partners.”

This doesn’t fix everything, El knows. Her heart still feels raw, and she’ll be doing her best to rid her memories and dreams of his hurtful words for the days to come. He still has miles to travel, has to learn to trust her enough to tell her when something is wrong, when he’s angry or hurting, even if it makes him ashamed. If she’s learned anything from the wreckage, there is cracks in their foundation that can only be fixed by better communication, But for now, there’s healing in this closeness. They can do this, together, like they always have.

She isn’t sure how long they lay there, reveling in the closeness, surrounded by wasting metal and weeds. The sun takes the horizon so many moments later, putting an end to the longest and angriest night. Her eyes are following the forming clouds in the sky when he whispers into the crick of her neck, “Hey, you wanna go put gummy bears in potassium chlorate?”

El meets his brown eyes, full of hope and excitement and the very thought of this science experiment, and she can’t help but burst into laughter. “Sure, we can blow up gummy bears, but I kind of want a nap first…”

“Sounds good.” Mike chuckles, pulling her off the truck bed, and they start the trek through the junkyard, hand in hand.

He kisses her hair as they tread through weeds, El taking one last look at the wasteland around them. She loves him, and that’s enough to make her strong enough to face places like this, to face these moments of metamorphosis. What she has built with him, it’s may not be perfect, but it’s theirs, its worth saving and its worth protecting.

It always has been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> to those who celebrate, have a wonderful christmas. if not, have a great weekend and a fabulous new year.
> 
> every reader keeps me writing. I wish i could give all of you a big hug.

**Author's Note:**

> song for the should i stay or should i go; mixtape- hear me//imagine dragons
> 
> just remember that in the end i love you.  
> and that more of this story is on the way.


End file.
